“He was pretending to be an NFL level kicker…”
IIRC he got permission from a team to train like a QB and was permitted to play one down in a pre-season game. I remember reading it when I was young.
Yes, Plimpton was a good writer and it was a good look at the inside of the NFL of the time. They used to play it quite frequently when 12 cable channels seemed like too many. Plimpton’s book Shadow Box was a very good book with the same idea applied to boxing. His theme was always the amateur inside a professional sport. It was an interesting way to see into professional sports and the gap between real people and the professionals. https://www.bing.com/search?q=plimpton+boxing&form=ANNTH1&refig=dfa507f7d95441f0be900a88ad5c70de